


bloom again

by FLWhite



Series: Braxel [4]
Category: SKAM (France), SKAM (TV) RPF
Genre: A LOT of Angst, Angst, Break Up, Heavy Drinking, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, Non-Monogamy, Pining, RPF, Realism Imane Realism, Vomiting, a lot of pining, caveat lector this shit continues to be emo as hell, maxel, solo masturbation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-06-09
Packaged: 2020-03-29 21:15:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19028074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FLWhite/pseuds/FLWhite
Summary: In another hour, he'll be standing at the familiar threshold for the last time.He'll look up, searching for something—he won't know what. But Maxence's eyes will be hooded and turned from him, fixed on something above and behind him.





	1. every bad thing that hasn't happened yet

**Author's Note:**

> Well, well, what a surprise, I wrote "one lonely star" and I had to do an Axel follow-up. 100% as gimmicky, 100% as emo. Désolé. 
> 
> Soundtrack (sibling power): FINNEAS's ["I lost a friend"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJk8Szk4qiY) and Billie Eilish's "Six Feet Under" (take a gander at the intensely sad slowed, pitch-dropped version [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0j81GWNxO6w)).
> 
> If you want to chase these sadfests with something less dire, please check out my other Maxel stories, the "2 boys, 1 dog, 1 snake" series co-written with my partner in crime @ryuujitsu (@hallo-catfish on tumblr), or our completed and ongoing SKAMFr works. 
> 
> As always, a work of pure fiction for AO3 users only.

**July  
**

In another hour, he'll be standing at the familiar threshold for the last time.

The words will have seeped from them long ago, along with the laughter, and they will hang suspended there in the doorway like two icicles, cold and alone though hardly a forearm's length apart. His icicle will be slowly melting; heat from the street will billow from behind him, from the stairwell. His shirt will be already dampening on his back.

He'll look up, searching for something—he won't know what. But Maxence's eyes will be hooded and turned from him, fixed on something above and behind him.

Stop it, he'll say sternly to himself, to his roiling stomach and to his mouth, which will taste like he's been licking old carpet. Stop this drama, you fucking idiot. You're going to see him again in ten days. It's not like you're going to Mars. You've just worn him the hell out this weekend. You got a little upset. He got a little upset. That's all.

But it's not right, another Axel will reply. It's not right. He's not looking at you. He's not looking, and always he's looked at you. Always, even when he's been angry. Even when he's cried. Say something. Say something.

No, he will tell the other Axel. No, if anyone says anything, it's not going to be me. He was so stupid to have told Héloïse. God, how am I going to arrange my face the next time I bump into her? He can be so fucking unreasonable sometimes. He's like an alien. A god. He doesn't think—he can't imagine what it's like for us mortals, crawling around down here on the burning dirt.

Say something.

He'll clear his throat. "I'll see you Sunday after I get back, then? D-do you want a souvenir, something? Port? A personal ham perhaps?" The eyes then will turn on him at last, almost frighteningly pale. Not even the slightest crinkle at their corners.

Once he starts talking, he won't be able to stop. "There's a falafel place that Charlie and I went to, too, a, uh, a little more low-key than Laxmi's. No knife-swallowing or belly dancers. Maybe we can check it out? Sunday night? Or Monday or Thursday after that, too, I'm free all day Thursday, actually, somehow."

Maxence will barely nod. "Maybe." The light flooding his apartment will halo him from behind and set his hair on golden fire. One lock of it will stick straight out over the tenderly curled helix of his left ear. Axel will suddenly wish, more than anything, to put his lips on that ear and his hands in that hair, in just the same way as he had a few hours ago, waking for a moment in the night.

Instead he'll say, "See—see you soon then," and open his arms. Maxence will lift just one hand and put it around Axel's left bicep, as though to keep him still. Then he'll raise his chin tersely, once.

Axel will back fully through the doorway. The door will shut. Then he'll run down the stairs, run the kilometer to his own apartment, run through it, ignoring even Ouba's happy little yip, and throw himself onto his own bed. He's going to pant, sweating hard, unsure whether the weight on his sternum is rage or terror or something else entirely.

By the time his breathing returns to normal, he'll have decided that it's rage. Who knows, probably Maxence was setting up to ask for a threesome or some other crazy shit down the line. Yes, they'd had that rule about incriminating pictures, but he'd sent Maxence so many, _so many_ , like a dumb kid still in _secondaire_. It wouldn't matter if none showed his face. By sheer quantity they would give everything away. If they came out—he can see his mentions exploding already— 

Fatigue will triumph over rage, and he'll soon be dreaming.


	2. a little too much money to be twenty and sad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Now, before Maxence's shut door, he will type.  
> He'll try to resist the impulse to throw his phone down the empty middle of the stairwell, between the banisters, to hear it shatter three floors below.  
> He'll try to not sound like he's begging.  
> 

**July**

In eleven days, the rage will have long gone.

He will be crouched on the landing before Maxence's locked door, his rolling bag sitting docilely beside him. He will grip his phone hard. All of him will feel as cold and flat as the glass of its screen.

If he scrolls up, he'll see again their previous conversation. Or, rather, his previous conversation, mainly with himself. He'll drag his finger back, back, back, to read in order.

— _I've had so much goddamn port I might turn purple_

_—how'd you feel about that_

_—niiiight_

 

_—good morning_

— _you'd really like this bread_

_—fluffy as your head_

_—about the same size_

_—hahaha that's almost a poem_

[PHOTO]

[PHOTO]

 

— _night night_

 

_—good morning_

— _hey?_

_—hope you didn't get your phone stolen_

_—all those hot pix of me_

_—haha_

_—night_

_—good morning_

_—sent you a postcard_

_—there might be a fucking postal strike here or smth tho_

_—lmk when it gets there?_

_—good night_

At last, on the fourth day, three gray bubbles among the sea of his blue ones:

_—hi_

_—J.F. is doing a thing down in Avignon_

_—I'll be there a few days with Héloïse_

_—J.F.! what thing?_

_—is H in it too?_

_—tell me tell me_

_—I can keep a secret, tell meeee_

— _good night Maxe_

_—good morning Maxe_

_—you must be filming like a madman down there_

_—hopefully you'll be back by Sunday?_

_—I'll call once we land_

 

[OUTGOING CALL]

[OUTGOING CALL]

He'll not leave a voicemail the first time. The second time, he says, doing a pretty good impression of bonhomie though he can barely stay in his seat on the plane as it continues to taxi toward the gate, _hope the shoot went well, did you get back from Avignon yet, I'm back now, I'm free all evening._

Now, before Maxence's shut door, he will type. He'll try to resist the impulse to throw his phone down the empty middle of the stairwell, between the banisters, to hear it shatter three floors below. He'll try to not sound like he's begging.

 _Are you ignoring me_ , he begins, but that sounds obviously like begging. _Are you mad at me_ , but that's plain old idiotic.

_—I did bring you some port. Sorry, no ham_

The bottle looks especially dark with the light grain of the door behind it.

_—Will your neighbors steal it if I just leave it at the door?_

Impeccably timed, the second-floor couple comes home together, laughing and kissing as they open their door; the man's guffaw is still audible after they shut it.

Bonhomie gives way to leaden fear.

He'll click to check Maxence's recent posts. One selfie with Héloïse and J.F. on the old bridge, deep blue skies streaked with cloud in the background. One will have been the scenery whizzing past a train window; Maxence showing his canines as he clinks a glass with J.F. and a candlelit blur of beautiful people, a third. He'll be sure, absolutely certain, that he's not missed a single story. Picturesque places, picturesque faces. Nothing amiss.

His feet, heavy with dread, will feel like they are pulling him through the fabric of the world as he stands up, leaning heavily against the peach-painted corridor wall. Anger will briefly revive, a burned-out branch that he clutches as he tries to save himself from drowning.

_—What the fuck Maxe_

_—at least talk to me_

Then he will sink again to his heels and put his forehead against the hard plastic side of his suitcase, clutching it to keep it from rolling away.

He'll want to sigh, but he'll resist it until he's back home and in the shower with the jets as hot as he can stand them, because he knows that once he lets himself, his eyes will get wet. And they do.


	3. I know that he don't need me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once he's watched it, there'll be no more reason, no more excuse, to linger.  
> 

**October**

In three months and twenty-five days, he'll wake with a stuffed nose and a hard ache in the back of his throat. His mother, away visiting his grandparents in Besançon for All Saints', will remind him that there is a box of chamomile tea in the cabinet and some chicken stock in the freezer when he replies to her usual "good morning" text to say that he thinks the bug going around among the stagehands has got him at last.

Ordinarily he hates being sick and would try to do nothing differently. But this time, he'll take like a real invalid to his bed. He'll drink cup after cup of chamomile with big teaspoons of sugar. He'll try to read a comic book that Charlène got him about Molière ( _no, graphic novel!_ he can hear her rolling her eyes at him.). He'll play with Ouba and try not to sneeze on her. If only he could actually take some of the wax covering the cheese in the fridge and stuff his ears: anything, anything to escape his phone and its irresistible song.

It'll be unseasonably chilly out. He'll be too optimistic and take Ouba for a short walk, just to the nearby park—a patch of grass really—in only a vest over the long-sleeved T-shirt with H E R O on its breast pocket. He'll feel anything but a hero as he cowers under his blankets on the couch, unwilling to admit that he is probably running a fever.

When the first wave of chills come, they'll jitter away the remnants of his resolve and he'll reach for his phone. Having given himself up to its temptation, he'll ignore the further texts from his mother, the "feel better soon my love" from Charlène, away in Italy, and navigate with two taps to what has been taunting him and haunting him for a whole week, the longest he's been able to stay away from it: Maxence's profile.

Of course, there will be a new story. But he'll scroll instead through the gallery, the urge to see the story painfully growing all the while, because once he's watched it, there'll be no more reason, no more excuse, to linger.

Two new photos in the last week: Maxence, grinning wide, dipping a long-handled orange spoon into a swirl of cream atop a bright-green drink, three buttons undone and the dip between his clavicles clearly visible: _smoothie time._ Maxence winking from under a tiny black velvet hat with an enormous white plume, a geyser of lace at his throat and a seed pearl glistening on one earlobe: _new project soon! stayed tuned <3\. _

He'll pull with his fingers at the corners of the picture to enlarge the pearl, the trio of moles like a constellation on the blade of the cheek, the tip of the nose that he knows always makes its owner giggle, when kissed; then he'll jolt, meeting the lucent blue of an eye without meaning to, and drop his phone on the rug.

He'll bend to retrieve it, coughing.

He'll tap on the story, which will load agonizingly slowly, and in those two or three seconds he'll stare at the black numbers at the top of his screen, thinking about where he'd been on this day last year, at three or four in the afternoon.

Probably trying to lift his head from Maxence's bare shoulder and being pressed back into place, both of them chuckling like dolts, sprawled across Maxence's too-soft bed. He'll remember that he said something about cleaning up, if people were coming at seven for this ridiculous quarter- birthday thing ( _one-third_ , Maxence corrected him, sleepily), and about leaving and coming back so it wouldn't look sketchy that he was there already. He'll also remember that Maxence had merely chortled and held them together there atop the sheets with both arms and both legs, skin to skin.

And then that'd distracted them so that at seven-ten the doorbell was chiming while Axel shot off toward the bathroom, shirt and hoodie flapping under his arm while trying to jump into his jeans, while Maxence, his T-shirt on backward, darted into the kitchen to purge all evidence of the night before.

The story will load, then. It will be, as he knew it would be before clicking on it, a juddering, multi-segmented video so loud it makes Axel's head buzz. Maxence sticking out his tongue as he jumps up and down, arms windmilling to the beat, accompanied by Hélöise's laugh; a disco light turning, planted on the high stool-like table where the big aloe vera usually sits; a cake in the form of a giant slice of cake, with a single M-shaped candle on it; an unruly rendition of "Happy One-Third-Birthday to You." 

He'll remember exiting at two a.m. with Simon and another guy from Maxence's agency, then, having bid them good night and pretended to go home, about-facing and climbing the flights back up to Maxence's, where the door was unlocked and Maxence's mouth and hands, as always after drinking, were sticky and eager and sweet.

Sweet, sweet, Maxence's fingers dipping into his mouth, except for the half-dried splashes of bitter salt, of himself, on them. Sweet, sweet, Maxence's short sharp cry, stifled against his palm, as the other, sloppy with cum, gives one last firm twisting pull. Sweet, sweet, Maxence, sucking clean the thin bit of flesh between his thumb and forefinger, making him a little hard again.

Fuck, he's going to mutter next, and thump his dizzy head against the back of the couch as though that will rid himself of the insistent tension in his briefs. Fuck. But maybe, he'll think, maybe getting off will help. Relax him, put him to sleep so he doesn't do something stupid, like opening Maxence's text chain. He'll see the last few gray bubbles in it even when he shuts his eyes, anyway; they'll hover behind his eyelids, letters white against black. He'll have had two weeks to memorize the most recent one, and nearly two months for the earliest.

 

— _sorry I was in England last week_

— _no, I'm just going to have a really busy next few months_

_—acting is busy, as it turns out_

— _for you too I'm sure. good luck_

_—no sorry I'll be away again, thanks for the coffee_

_—yeah in the Alps, Chamonix_

_—sorry missed your call. not this time_

He'll imagine, briefly, kicking at Maxence's door until it splinters or his foot does or until it's finally opened, and how he'd lunge inside and slam into Maxence and press him against the wall and knock off all the pictures and reach up and inhale him, swallow him down to the final bitter drop, until they can't be separated by time or words, until this horrible ache in his own throat and breast and belly dies away.

He'll come so hard that stars burst in his vision.

He'll end up on antibiotics for a week, and a dry cough will linger a week longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Remember how I was like, I'm spent with Maxel and Elu, I'm done, I'm through, I have work to do, I'm washing my hands? 
> 
> Well, I've perpetrated instead ~6300 words of NON-Maxel, only-peripherally-Elu yet still SKAMFr fic. It's in the "Chamonix"/"Lyon" universe.  
> You can find it [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19079863/chapters/45326686).
> 
> And that will truly be my last word!


	4. said something sorta like your name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He'll reply, feeling like a cardboard cutout of himself.  
> 

**December**

In five months and thirteen days, under bright lights and before the shining eyes of nearly five hundred people, he'll grind his teeth and try not to let his feet jiggle in anxiety against the floor. Maxence will prance down the darkened aisle toward all of them, seated in a line on the stage, as the fans cheer like they want to burst their lungs. There will be a big smile on Maxence's face as he waves.

Their eyes will not meet.

Léo, beside him, will quirk a meaningful eyebrow, but he will pretend not to see. There will have been, by this point, quite a lot of pretending not to see.

In the early fall, when the number of exclamation- and crying-emoji-filled demands for explanations that he was receiving per day had climbed into the triple digits, he will have turned off all his direct messages. By mid-November, he'll have told the agency that he's too busy for any more show-related interviews or social media clips of any kind—not that many have been approaching him for them, after he'd done that two-minute thing just after getting over the bronchitis and had been nearly unable to pronounce Maxence's name.

He'll have been pretending not to notice a drop-off in the mail arriving at the agency, in the proportion of people under forty-five waiting in the atrium after his shows, in the number of Likes on his posts—even the ones with Ouba.

He'll have been ignoring his mother each time she asks if he'd like a change of scene for Christmas and the New Year, what's the matter lately, is everything okay with Charlie, was it something someone online said.

He'll have been ignoring Charlène when she frowns and pulls back from a kiss, her dark hair tangled, trying to look into his eyes. When she takes his hand. When she puts her forehead against his in silent inquiry.

And there, sitting there on the stage because David had called him directly and taken him to coffee for nearly two hours and watched him with those eyes at once tender and stern as he stammered and hewed and finally agreed to attend, there he will also pretend not to see things.

How Maxence's jacket rides up a few centimeters as he climbs onstage and a sliver of skin appears between fields of black, nearly glowing.

How one of the rips on those jeans that he always used to joke were so distressed that they needed therapy has expanded, and how seeing it makes him remember how the _mardi_ inked on Maxence's right kneecap had tasted, that time they'd each bet that the other couldn't kiss his own knees. 

How Maxence sits down with a happy squeal between Marilyn and Michel, at the farthest possible point from himself, exchanging _bises_ and hugs.

He will have to work hard, very hard, to not look, but also to not look like he's trying not to look. Maxence in person, compared to Maxence in two dimensions, will be the depthless sea to a cup of water, the burn of midsummer sun to a guttered candle, a stinging mouthful of broken ice to a snowflake melting on his cheek.

He'll remember another stage, another time, almost another universe, when Maxence had tripped toward him and sat at his feet, leaning with a content sigh against his shins, and the soft prickle of black hair against his chin when he'd leaned down and pretended to chide Maxence for being so obvious.

"Can't get up and move _now_ ," Maxence had retorted in a whisper, looking out at the crowd with a imperturbable smile, but he'd reached up with one ringed hand and Axel had, almost by reflex, seized it. 

Thinking on this, he'll cup one of his hands with the other and look down at the tips of his boots and be grateful for his hat. It will shade his face well enough for him to swallow what he won't even admit to himself is a tear before the Q and A proper begins.

*

He'll try to slink away before he can be cornered and made to take photos alongside Maxence. He'll walk fast to the bathrooms, collect himself momentarily in a stall and refresh the convention hashtag a few times to see who else is left in the theater. If Maxence left early, he could go back.

But no, the new photos and videos being uploaded every minute will show the bobbling brown head still ducking and tilting as its owner takes endless selfies, throws arms around shoulders, claps and laughs with delight over another T-shirt, another painting, another stuffed raccoon. David and Niels and a third of the others will still be there, too, being swarmed. Sharp-eyed Assa and Coline will be, unfortunately, among them.

Waiting until the bathroom is silent, he'll pull his hood as low as it'll go over his hat and walk at a pace just shy of a jog toward the theater doors. He'll collide with someone. In the moment of muttered apology and trying to see who it was without taking off his hood, he'll wish for a feverish instant that he'll meet blue eyes beneath a tawny crown. But it will be Moussa, eyebrows high and smiling broadly. "Hey! I ran right into our rarest creature, _Axel Aurianticus_!"

He'll chuckle as convincingly as he can and try to extricate himself, but Moussa gives him a tremendous hug that nearly pulls him from the carpeted floor. "Really though, we miss you, bro. When was the last time I saw you?"

Sorry, Work Busy, Family Stuff, he'll reply, feeling like a cardboard cutout of himself.

"C'mon, kid, you gotta slow down _sometime_ , I tell you. Don't be like me and not get it till you're on this side of twenty-five." Moussa will give his shoulder a squeeze. "And talk to people. Isn't that what Lucas does?" 

Nodding assent and pretending to have received a text that brooks no delay, he'll allow himself to be hugged again before successfully escaping the theater.

Putting on his helmet, he'll tell himself that he got lucky, when in fact he feels anything but.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two more sections--should be through by this weekend. Thanks so much again for reading.


	5. if I thought it might make a difference

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't like hearing you lie.  
> 

**January**

In six months and one day he will be looking at the twenty-two candles on his snare-drum-shaped cake when he feels the tears begin to rise against his lower lids. He'll try to blink them away, but this plan grievously backfires and one will trickle, with almost gleeful speed, down his cheek.

Charlène and Léon will exchange glances, but no one else will notice, or show that they had.

"You're taking forever, Axel," Tom will peer at his nonexistent watch. "What kind of wish is it anyway?"

Petra, with mock severity, will add, "We need sugar, monsieur, sugar."

He'll force his mouth into a grin and nod and say "Here I go" and blow the flickering flames out all at once, as everyone cheers.

*

She'll be holding his hand and crouching with him as he presses his head to the cold rim of Léon's brutally square bathroom sink. Léon will have at some point knocked on the door and asked what was going on, and she'll have told him to keep the others busy for a while.

But that will have been at least an hour ago. And still he won't be able to make himself stand up, or open his swollen eyes, or even lean against her. He'll imagine an outline of himself, filled in with black guilt. Filled to bursting. It tastes like ink in his mouth.

Poor Charlie. Poor pretty Charlie. He'll turn to her and she'll cradle his head in the soft fragrant crook of her arm, murmuring: "take your time, love," she'll say, "just breathe. I'm right here."

"I slept with him," he'll say back. "I don't know how many times. A hundred times. Two. Nine months. Almost nine months—short one week." He speaks in a torrent like a cut artery. He'll watch her eyes darken, her face grow pale.

Charlène's mouth will move without sound. "Who," she'll say eventually, but the syllable will be drowned in the surge of his words.

He'll continue; he has no choice. It'll be fine or it won't. "But really, it was longer. Eleven months and twenty-four days. Counting everything. Counting the start. Almost a year."

"Axel, Axel!" Her grip on his hand will be steel, calluses from the uneven bars rough against his knuckles. "Who? What are you talking about?"

He'll look at her imploringly: please don't make me say it, please.

Her cheeks will shift from bloodless to rosy to flaming scarlet. Her voice will be only a little too loud. "Maxence. God. _Him_."

"I'm—" The blood will again leach from her face as she pulls her hands free from his, getting to her feet. "Hélöise—his girlfriend—she knew. I—I couldn't figure out how to tell you. Charlie, I'm sorry."

"Why the _fuck_ are you telling me now, then?" She'll shudder, her fists trembling at her sides, and he'll almost wish she would hit him.

He'll want to say many things. Because I have to go back. Because I can't not try. Because every day of the last six months I have tried but failed to stop loving him. Because I don't want to lose you too. Because I can't choose, don't make me choose, please. Please. But her eyes will be as cold and remote as stars. "Because it's over with him now," he will whisper. "But I wanted you to know. Because I love you."

"Stop it. I don't like hearing you lie." She'll close her eyes and let her head tip back against the chilly granite and rest there, unmoving, for a long while. She'll sniff, once, quickly. The creamy lights around the vanity will gild her skin. Then she'll look at him, without spite. "All right, it's your party. Cry if you want to. Fuck who you want to. But you can't give me the smallest slice and the shortest pour all the time and tell me they're your biggest and best and fucking expect me to stay."

She'll not slide the door fully shut as she leaves him. Music will still be playing, but the cavernous apartment will be dim and silent under it, so that each chord and drumbeat will make his ears ring. Léon will say something to Charlène, too quietly to be heard. Then the front door will close, and at the same time Axel will lock the bathroom door and look at his outstretched legs on the thick red mat covering the black stone and sob until he is lying on his side, dry-heaving into his hands.

*

Each of the texts that he sent to Maxence the week previous, like all the others, will have been read, but there will not be even a single word in reply to this latest set—at least, not yet. Something might appear in another two days, or four, or a week.

He'll hiccup, still flat on his back on the bath mat, as he scrolls up, then down, flicking through the pathetically short history of their past half-year. Maxence does always reply eventually, but his messages will have shriveled to the bone. To the _nice seeing you today_ Axel sent after the convention in December, Maxence will have typed, five days later, merely _and you_. But nothing, nothing yet to _it'd be nice to see you_. Read at some point between Axel's having gone to bed and his waking on the day before New Year's Eve.

He'll look at them for a while, these words, the ghost-traces of Maxence. He won't be able to tell if he wants to stroke the screen above the letters or smash his phone into a nova of glass against the dark expanse of the unyielding floor. Even as he shouts at himself not to do it, he'll begin typing, swiping away the new notifications from Léon as though shooing flies.

The clumsiness of his fingers and the throb starting behind his eyes will remind him of how many drinks he had before taking refuge in the bathroom. But he will persevere, squinting: _dont know waht ican do or say but can we please meet shoulhdave talked at the convnnntion shldhave tlked when i got bck from_ _lisbon_ _maxe_ , he'll manage, before the sight of those last four letters forces him to put down his phone, struggle to his hands and knees, put his face over the toilet waiting close by like a cordial friend, and vomit for what will feel like an hour.

*

He'll wake up later, sweat sticking his limbs to the black leather of Léon's sectional, and delete every letter of what he'd written while keeping his eyes tight-shut against the feeble light of earliest morning seeping past the blinds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just one final bit to go, folks. Thanks for coming along on this long wallow through melancholy with me.


	6. counting all the mistakes I've made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He shouldn't watch. He shouldn't. But he will, and five times in a row, at that.
> 
>  

**March**

In eight months and twenty-seven days, he will go to a dress rehearsal and sweat heavily into the yards and yards of blue velveteen and cream-colored polyester that take forty-five minutes to put on and take off, with the help of two costume assistants. He will stay behind to talk with the director and his understudy for almost ninety minutes. He will eat an endive salad and a bisque for lunch. He will go home early, picking up some dish soap and a bottle of lemon-flavored sparkling water per his mother's request on the way.

He will be fine. Calm. All right. He'll unlock his phone on the métro, click into his profile, and then nothing will be all right. At the top of his page, thankfully _visible to you only_ , will be that still of them together by the pond from the final episode, Maxence laughing at him, a hand cupping his cheek with the thumb almost touching the corner of his lips, him smiling to show all his teeth as he tips back his head, looking drunk.

_Your post on this day one year ago._

All his tranquility will fold on itself and become an infinitely heavy, lightless point where his heart used to beat. Apparently, turning off the _Your Memories_ feature hadn't worked.

He'll clang the bottles of water against the doorframe as he pitches through it. He won't lock the door. He shouldn't watch. He shouldn't. But he will, and five times in a row, at that. Or, more accurately, four-and-a-half. He'll pause the video, finally, just before the moment of the still.

He'll look at their kissing faces filling the screen. He'll feel again the fierce pressure of Maxence's mouth on his. He'll remember, after twice knocking the beer bottle in his hand against the back of Maxence's head, successfully draping his arm around Maxence's shoulders on the third take. Maxence, sighing, had flicked his tongue-tip between Axel's teeth, mouthing not _Lucas_ but _Axel_.

Tears will come, not the raucous ones that laid him out in Léon's bathroom, but silent ones, scalding, so salty that they'll be bitter.

His hand will be on his phone before he admits to himself what it is doing. The ringing will seem to echo in his skull.

Don't answer; please answer; why would he answer?

Axel won't have even left a voicemail since October. Probably he's been blocked at last.

His tongue will feel like a dead thing when he realizes that the ringing has stopped, but that the call has not ended; his eyes will overflow.

Silence on the line. They hold their breaths, together.

As though learning to speak again, he'll say Maxence's name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading this and my other SKAMFr works. Thanks as always to [@ryuujitsu/hallo-catfish](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryuujitsu/pseuds/zetaophiuchi) for their support and enthusiasm. <3  
> I think my outpouring has come to at least a temporary end, but it was truly a phenomenal time.


End file.
